Artisan chocolatier Montezuma’s has vegan dark chocolate mini peanut butter eggs for Easter.
Made from 56 percent dark chocolate, Montezuma’s describes the confections as “soft centred, bite-sized and very addictive.” According to the company, customers requested a dairy-free version of its popular peanut butter-stuffed Easter eggs.
Founded by lawyers-turned-chocolatiers, Helen and Simon Pattinson, Montezuma’s began with a single shop in Brighton in 2000. The couple were inspired to enter the chocolate business by a trip to South America in 1999, where they came across several small chocolate shops, according to The Guardian.
Montezuma’s sources its chocolates fairly from co-ops in the Dominican Republic or Peru. The company was named one of The Guardian’s Top 10 Ethical Chocolate Companies in 2007. Everything is made in Montezuma’s West Sussex-based factory.
Demand for vegan chocolate is on the rise across Europe but particularly in the UK, where people eat more chocolate that anywhere in the world, according to a March 2018 Mintel report. Analysts noted that demand tends to spike around holidays like Easter.
“There’s currently a focus on plant-based eating in the chocolate sector. Manufacturers have responded to the growing interest in plant-based diets by replacing dairy milk with nut-or-grain-derived milks in milk chocolate products,” said Marcia Mogelonsky, director of Mintel’s GNPD (Global New Products Database) Insight.
Montezuma’s carries a few other vegan options for Easter, including its Absolute Black dark chocolate egg and its Like No Udder dairy-free milk chocolate egg.
A number of other artisan chocolatiers including Melt, Chococo, Booja Booja, and Hotel Chocolat have vegan options for Easter. The latter makes a dairy-free “Soft Boiled Egg,” featuring a dark chocolate with a white chocolate center. Independent chocolatier Mummy Meagz makes a vegan version of Cadbury’s famous Creme Egg, featuring a gooey cocoa butter center.
Several supermarkets across the UK carry Moo Free chocolate Easter treats and Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Co-Op, and Holland & Barrett offer private label vegan eggs. Sainsbury’s, for example, has a dairy-free strawberry white chocolate egg.
Montezuma’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs are available online and in Holland & Barrett.
This post was last modified on December 15, 2020 6:43 am